D&D 5E Your favorite Creative Spellbooks

BookTenTiger · Nov 25, 2020

What are some fun, creative alternate Spellbooks you've experienced in your games?

The PHB notes that Spellbooks can have different appearances:

The Book’s Appearance. Your spellbook is a unique compilation of spells, with its own decorative flourishes and margin notes. It might be a plain, functional leather volume that you received as a gift from your master, a finely bound gilt-edged tome you found in an ancient library, or even a loose collection of notes scrounged together after you lost your previous spellbook in a mishap.

Xanathar's includes some really fun Spellbook ideas, including:

Small stones inscribed with spells and kept in a cloth bag

My current dwarf wizard us an archaeologist by trade, so his "spellbook" is actually his collection of artifacts from various tombs and dungeons! For example, he casts Grease by blowing into a horn made from a friend slug found in the tombs of the Slime Lords.

When I add new spells after levelling up, I choose new artifacts I found in whatever dungeons we've explored. We got through Forge of Fury, and when I gained the spell Rope Trick I described it as an old brick that was the mantel of a door in Khundrukar. Throwing it into the air produces a brick ladder and a doorway that opens into the memory of a room from the dwarven hold.

What are your favorite alternate Spellbooks?

R_J_K75 · Nov 25, 2020

I always liked Dark Suns take on alternate spellbooks. Because magic was outlawed casters used mundane objects to disguise their spellbooks, such weaving distinctive knots into pieces of rope. To the undertrained eye they looked like nothing special.

jgsugden · Nov 25, 2020

Tattoos. But you run out of space you say? I didn't say the tattoos were on the wizard. I had a bad guy hunting down former slaves because they had his spells inscribed on their skin (it allowed him to apply metamagic to the spells automatically by drawing upon their soul energy).

I also had a wizard lose their spellbook. They had no access to get another one, but they were high level enough (and had prepared) Magnificent Mansion, so he had the spells inscribed on the wall when he created it.

R_J_K75 · Nov 25, 2020

jgsugden said:
Tattoos.

I havent followed the Tattoos as spells since 2E Spellbound boxed set. Is there a limit to the number of spells a person can tattoo on themselves and even then the spell level is capped?

prabe · Nov 25, 2020

My wife is playing a Diviner Wizard whose "spellbook" is a divinatory deck and a booklet of layouts, spreads, and interpretations. When she learns spells from an outside source, it's described as figuring out how to layout the cards to imprint that spell in her brain, so she can then prepare them. I kinda wish I were DMing for that character, but I'm not.

jgsugden · Nov 25, 2020

R_J_K75 said:
I havent followed the Tattoos as spells since 2E Spellbound boxed set. Is there a limit to the number of spells a person can tattoo on themselves and even then the spell level is capped?

I made up my own rules for it. It was for an NPC (BBEG) wizard, so the rules were a bit fast and loose. The two prisoners he was chasing had 9th level spells on their skin (1 each).

R_J_K75 · Nov 25, 2020

jgsugden said:
I made up my own rules for it. It was for an NPC (BBEG) wizard, so the rules were a bit fast and loose. The two prisoners he was chasing had 9th level spells on their skin (1 each).

Perfect! That's exactly what I would have done. Sometimes the "rules" just get in the way of a good time and a good story and do nothing more than cause unnecessary reading.

Charlaquin · Nov 25, 2020

jgsugden said:
Tattoos. But you run out of space you say? I didn't say the tattoos were on the wizard. I had a bad guy hunting down former slaves because they had his spells inscribed on their skin (it allowed him to apply metamagic to the spells automatically by drawing upon their soul energy).

My partner has a wild soul barbarian who’s the escaped slave of just such a wizard. The wild magic surges are fluffed as accidentally activating the magic of the tattoos.

tetrasodium · Nov 25, 2020

I've given out these two in the past

a bunch of these are swordmeow spells

I also like eberron's dragonshards & am leaning towards removing their scribing cost next time I have a player running a wizard

edit: The spellbooks in TCoE impressed me too

cbwjm · Nov 25, 2020

I quite like the thought of a wizard's staff having magical runes inscribed on them which acts as the wizard's spellbook. Whether they actually read the runes to change their spells of meditate while holding the staff to take in the magical knowledge is a thing I haven't quite decided on and maybe don't need to decide on.

D&D 5E Your favorite Creative Spellbooks

BookTenTiger

He / Him

R_J_K75

Legend

jgsugden

Legend

R_J_K75

Legend

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun

jgsugden

Legend

R_J_K75

Legend

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

tetrasodium

Legend

cbwjm

Seb-wejem

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